Firmware QA Engineer (Embedded Test Engineer)

Ember LifeSciences; Westlake Village (CA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Ember Life Sciences is seeking a Firmware QA Engineer to improve reliability across our IoT-enabled cold chain logistics platform serving healthcare and pharmaceutical customers. This role is firmware-focused and hands-on, involving manual tests on real hardware, log collection, and pre-deployment verification.

You will collaborate with firmware and hardware teams, validate releases, run regression tests across device behaviors, and contribute light scripting to speed up checks.

Qualifications

• Experience testing connected systems (IoT platforms, distributed services, or cloud apps).
• Familiarity with embedded firmware validation concepts and hardware-in-the-loop testing.
• Strong test design, regression strategies, and risk-based testing.
• Experience validating production releases and assessing customer impact.

Responsibilities

• Validate firmware releases on hardware against defined scope and acceptance criteria.
• Execute manual regression testing across core device behaviors (power, sensors, charging, connectivity, fault recovery).
• Perform ship testing and pre‑deployment verification for outgoing units.
• Run firmware test passes (smoke, regression, targeted suites) and report pass/fail results.
• Validate GPS functionality and firmware behavior, including TTF, accuracy checks, and edge cases.
• Reproduce and triage device issues using logs and lab tools.
• Partner with firmware and hardware engineers early to clarify behavior and testability needs.
• Validate connectivity behavior relevant to firmware, including pairing and stability.
• Support investigation of customer-impacting issues by capturing device evidence and aiding root-cause analysis.
• Contribute light scripting and tooling (Python, shell) to speed up checks; automation not core.
• Communicate quality status, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to stakeholders.

Skills

IoT testing experience

Embedded firmware validation

Test design & regression

Strong communication

Tools

Python

Shell scripting

Job description

Job Summary

Ember Life Sciences is seeking a Firmware QA Engineer to improve reliability across our IoT-enabled cold chain logistics platform serving healthcare and pharmaceutical customers. This role is firmware-focused and hands‑on. You will spend significant time running manual tests on real hardware, reproducing issues, collecting logs, and performing ship testing (pre‑deployment verification) to ensure devices behave correctly before they go out to customers. You will work closely with firmware and hardware engineering, and coordinate with backend and operations as needed to validate end‑to‑end behavior.

Responsibilities

• Validate firmware releases on hardware against defined scope and acceptance criteria
• Execute manual regression testing across core device behaviors (power, sensors, charging, connectivity, fault recovery)
• Perform ship testing and pre‑deployment verification, including device setup, configuration checks, and release readiness validation for outgoing units
• Run dedicated firmware test passes for each release (smoke, regression, and targeted suites) and report clear pass/fail results
• Validate GPS functionality and firmware behavior, including time to first fix, accuracy checks, signal loss and recovery, and low‑signal edge cases
• Reproduce and triage device issues using logs and lab tools (serial logs, in‑house tools)
• Partner with firmware and hardware engineers early to clarify expected behavior, edge cases, and testability needs
• Validate connectivity behavior relevant to firmware, including pairing and stability
• Support investigation and reproduction of customer‑impacting issues by capturing device evidence and helping isolate root cause boundaries
• Contribute light scripting and tooling to speed up repetitive checks (Python, shell), but automation is not the core requirement
• Communicate quality status, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to cross‑functional stakeholders

Requirements and Skills

• Experience testing connected systems such as IoT platforms, distributed services, or cloud-based applications
• Familiarity with embedded firmware validation concepts and hardware integrated testing
• Strong understanding of test design, regression strategies, and risk-based testing
• Experience validating production facing releases and assessing customer impact
• Ability to identify gaps in coverage and communicate quality risk clearly
• Ability to work effectively across engineering, product, operations, and support teams
• Comfortable clarifying scope, asking questions, and pushing back on priorities using data and risk
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Pragmatic and outcomes focused, prioritizing impact over activity
• Able to balance execution with continuous improvement while managing competing priorities

Nice to Have

• Experience validating firmware update flows (OTA or local) and confirming true device version after update
• Experience testing GPS modules and interpreting GPS-related logs (Time to first fix, accuracy metrics)
• Scripting experience in bash/shell and/or Python for test utilities, log parsing, and repeatable validation workflows.
• Experience in regulated or safety-conscious environments (healthcare, life sciences, aerospace, OEM)